The Joining

The Joining by Annie Stein

The Joining is a major cultural event on Torm cities focused on life, love, and family. It celebrates the mating of two zaratan, who bond for life but mate only once every fifty years. It's one of very few times in which two zaratan come into close contact with each other.

Pre-Joining

All zaratan are closely monitored with a variety of non-invasive equipment. Prior to a Joining, these systems register a spike in certain horomones as well as a diversion of course for two zaratan as they turn to head toward each other and increase in speed. The city's attending doctors, governing bodies, and religious heads are all notified that a Joining will soon take place, and VI systems estimate when it will occur.

Key Players

• Acquisition Managers coordinate trading people with needed skills between the cities, such as an engineer for a doctor.
• Liaisons work with local families to determine openness to such trades.
• Oversight Boards ensure families aren't pressured into the trade, and have ample opportunity to refuse.
• High Priests and other religious figures plan key ceremonies to be handled jointly.
• Engineers work overtime to ensure all equipment is capable of keeping the city safe during the dive.
• Childcare Providors keep young kids engaged and occupied while parents and older siblings work on other tasks.
• Doctors watch the zaratan to ensure they're in good health and the festivities don't cause them stress.
• Event Managers assign vendors to booths and schedule parades, music, and other performances.

Arranged Marriages

When specialists are traded between cities, it's often done through an arranged marriage to someone on the destination city. This gives the transplanted specialist an immediate anchor to the new city, and promotes important Tormish values of family, support, and belongingness.
Dedicated matchmakers assist with the process to find a compatible partner for each specialist. Gender preferences are always considered, and counselors are available to answer questions and ensure the system isn't abused. Either person can refuse the marriage, though this happens only rarely. Arranged couples and their families meet repeatedly over voice and video calls leading up to the Joining, when they finally meet in person.

Main Events

Preparation for the Joining takes months, with the week leading up to it a frenzy of tasks enough to put all other work in the city on hold. The event itself, however, lasts no more than a day. The start time depends on when the zaratan meet, and the celebration continues even if in the dead of night.

Commencement Ceremony

Once the zaratan meet, they circle each other for several hours. High priests from each city meet on a platform between the two and, recorded by multiple camera drones, read from Ahl-amaq texts. The Joining is a key event in their faith, the this ceremony highlights its importance to humanity's continued existence on the planet. Once the priests share a few key words, temporary bridges between the cities open and people are free to move between them.

Gold winner of the Under the Sea Flash Challenge

Timeline of Events

Months	Coordination begins between the two cities.
1 week	With the other zaratan in view, both cities prepare to host events.
6 hours	As the zaratan circle each other, people celebrate the event across both.
2 hours	The mass wedding joins people from different cities in a live broadcast event.
1 hour	Everyone returns to their home city in preparation for the dive.
1 hour	The zaratan dive underwater as part of their mating ritual.
4 hours	Resurfaced, the zaratan and their cities rest before parting ways.

Information

Primary Related Location

Torm

Related Events

Defending the Joining

Festivities and Events

Vendors line the streets and food stalls adorn every corner. There's live music, kid-friendly parades, and adults-only burlesque shows. The arranged couples meet for the first time, and each family hosts the other for a meal during the day. This is often the only first-hand experience Tormians get with culture and art from another city, with many living their whole lives on the same zaratan.

Mass Wedding

Two hours before the dive, a mass wedding is hosted in a spectacular event. Silk ribbons adorned with representations of the two zaratan ripple in the wind and water jets spray mist in the air to create sparking rainbows above the couples. Head priests officiate with an accompnying orchestra as families in the audience look on and thousands more watch from screens broadcasting the event.

The Dive

The dive is the focal point of the celebration. Everyone returns to their home cities and all but emergency lighting shuts off. Sunlight fades as the zaratan dive deep below the ocean's surface. They twist through schools of shimmering wamiddon fish. Massive samaqirsh look on, and burkania jellyfish bump against the city's shields. Occasional lights shine up from the oceanic depths, from bioluminescence or underwater volcanos. Children gather with instructors, tasked with naming as many fish species as they can.
Many adults have a different celebration, as the Joining is a highly romantic and intimate event. Newlyweds consummate their marriage in a final ceremony. Others find partners or groups to share the moment with, whether their spouses, significant-others, or chance encounters. Many report the experience provides a connection deeper than any they've experienced before.

Concluding

As the dive completes and the zaratan resurface to rest, so, too, do the cities and all living within them. Lights remain off, stores remain closed, and regardless of time of day, most take the time to recover from the day's events and busyness leading up to it. Hours later, the zaratan part ways for another fifty years. Over the next few days, decorations are pulled down and streets are swept up. By the following week, it's back to business as usual. Those in temporary positions return to their usual work and those who'd worked longer hours take their time off.
Even as daily life resumes, few remain unchanged by the experience. For years following a Joining, there are marked increases in birthrates, weddings, and visitors to Ahl-amaq temples. As for the zaratan, the female of the pair will lay her egg in six months, and have a young one to tend to for the next fifteen years.